Cities and towns throughout the world depend on having clean potable water supplies. The dependence on clean water has increased as the population of the world has increased, especially as industrial use of rivers and lakes have become commonplace. The increased industrial use of fresh water supplies has resulted in a corresponding decrease in water quality throughout the world, due principally to industrial related release of pollutants into the water supplies. The decrease in water quality is contravening to the world's increased dependence on clean potable water supplies, requiring a concerted effort toward both minimizing the release of pollution into the water supplies and removing existing pollution in water supplies throughout the world.
Conventionally, water treatment facilities are often equipped with specialized systems for removal of target pollutants from a water supply. For example, contacting the water supply with an affinity material having sorptive qualities toward the target pollutant of concern in the water source. Typically, these sorptive materials are constrained in a column that receives the water source, in a down-flow fashion, allowing the movement of the water source and gravity to compact the sorptive material through-which the water source will flow. Although these down-flow systems tend to beneficially act as filters, due to the compacted sorptive material, they also tend to clog and rarely provide adequate space between each sorptive material particle and the aqueous media source for maximal sorptive properties. These are a significant issue, i.e., system capacity and system clogging, when a large volume of water is being treated, for example at a municipal water treatment facility.
In more limited settings, water supplies have been passed through sorptive columns in an up-flow manner. However, clogging and inadequate movement of the water source over the sorptive material have proven problematic.
Against this backdrop the present invention was developed.